There may be a setback in the plans in install security imaging programs from British airports, and that setback is called child pornography law. The machines generates images that can see if passengers are concealing materials beneath their clothes, much like the case of the would-be Christmas bombing. However, the images generated are highly graphic (because they have to be in order to be efficient) and many are outraged at subjecting under-18's to this treatment is highly unethical due to, well, ethics, and child pornography laws in England.

Privacy campaigners claim the images created by the machines are so graphic they amount to “virtual strip-searching” and have called for safeguards to protect the privacy of passengers involved. Ministers now face having to exempt under-18s from the scans or face the delays of introducing new legislation to ensure airport security staff do not commit offenses under child pornography laws. [...]

A 12-month trial at Manchester airport of scanners which reveal naked images of passengers including their genitalia and breast enlargements only went ahead last month after under-18s were exempted.

Another worry is that, although the images created by the software are supposed to be immediately deleted if the person is clean, workers will save the nude images of celebrities or politicians, perhaps to the public.

Simon Davies, a detection software director in Britain, says that it is possible to blur out the provocative regions of the body, like the breasts and genitals. However, as The Lede muses, "Then again if the man who went through security in Amsterdam on Christmas day with explosives concealed in his underwear had encountered a full-body scanner that blurred out that part of his body, it seems fair to ask if he would have been caught or simply waved through to board his flight for Detroit."

While subjecting children to this treatment is unethical, adults should trade this minor dabble in pornography for absolute safety on airplane flights. Especially since, when you take a look at the actual images generated by the detection software, the images seems too generic to be harmful. Who really cares if some random airport worker can tell you have breast implants if it means that would-be terrorists like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab don't get to blow up planes? Besides, we can probably already tell.